I managed to get through the Thargoid missions myself this afternoon, and am
now the proud owner of a yummy little thargoid war-ship.
Just in case you havent gotten that far just yet, here is some helpful info
on it;

1: MAKE SURE that you do NOT already have an MB4 MINING MACHINE
    on board BEFORE you go and accept the Vaccine mission from the Thargoids!
    (if you DO, then you dont get the thargoid version, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to
    mine the vaccine from Hotice 1 with the standard MB4!)

2: ENSURE that you have had PLENTY of ecperience in the LANDING aspect of
  the game! Because, even though the thoughtful Thargoids give you cool
LASERS and MISSILES, they swipe all your SHEILD GENERATORS, thus making it a
bit more demanding if you have to fight on your way to Hotice, and better
yet,the landing must be pretty spot-on! (Yeah, we all know how EASY it is to
land on a planet when you have 300 SHEILD GENERATOR units!)
 Q:WHY not stop off somewhere and buy some?
 A:Well, on one of my attempts, my Thargoid Mining Machine failed to mine any
  vaccine, no matter HOW many different places I landed (next to the bunker).
      I can only account this to the fact of stopping at a station on the way.

3: OK. You have the vaccine. (there is no need to 'FAST FORWARD' time while
waiting for the Thargoid Mining Machine to mine the Vaccine (probably stated
as 'water'-viva la buggs), as you can re-ploy it as soon as you have
de-ployed it.
     Anyway, just say that you ACTUALLY get back to MIACKE (37,144) and drop
it off to the Great Clone Leader of the Thargoids (to do this, just click on
your Nav-Com icon, and select the  ????, then accelerate the StarDreamer to
MAX,and you will get a message that wakes you up...), then you are doing
pretty good!
  BUT, (lotsa-savegames required), everything is succesful, and you get a
Cool, hexagonal thargoid ship to cruise the universe in, (FINALLY!), with
all the cool firepower and class that you would expect from those that
nearly wiped us all out,
     I HOPE YOU KNOW HOW TO DOCK AT A PLANET OR A SPACESATION
     WITHOUT A BLOODY NAV-COM OR AUTO-PILOT!
     YEAH! Thats Right! Those pilfering Thargoids took it apon themselves to
strip your damn ship of all those little luxeries that we have been taking
for granted since day one!

4: BUT, if you do manage to get back to Fed space, and DO manage to dock WITH-
     OUT the aid of an AUTOPILOT (and it isnt really THAT hard, as your ship
does have ONE little thing about it that you cant complain
about.......you'll    find out)
     Then STOCK up on ALL the cool stuff (after selling off the ALIEN ARTIFACTS
      they gave you), and you have got one HELL of
afighter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HINTS--------
Here is a way to get a cool Military rating in the FEDERAL NAVY.
1:Goto ETA CASSIOPEIA (0,2)
2:find a port with the FED Military WANTS YOU....... on the BBS
3:Take as MANY missions (time permitting) as you can to AC+79o3888 (0,2)
4:After delivery, head back to ETA CASSIOPEIA (0,2)-dont worry if you dont find
   any mission at AC+79o3888-just go anyway.
5:REPEAT steps 1 to 5 (until you get bored of it!)

RESULTS-------
It took me 33 individual missions (sometimes I did 12 at a time, though) to
go from CORPORAL to SERGEANT, and 88 individual missions to go from SERGEANT
to SERGEANT-MAJOR (thats when all the assasin missions come into it :)
I know it sounds like a lot, but bear in mind that to reach SERGEANT, I did
a total of 10 trips (5 each way), and to reach SERGEANT-MAJOR, it was 18
trips (9e/w) Use this as a sort of Exostentialistic Scale. (WOW! Wotta big
word!)

ANOTHER HINT-------
To get your Elite rating up a bit, it is ironic, but just fall back on the
ORIGINAL game-play of ELITE.
Goto LAVE(-3,-6), and just hoon around your old favorite systems, or be a taxi 
or delivery service. I stuck to the LAVE, DISO, LEESTI, RIEDQUAT & ZAONCE
systems.
NOTE-
ZAONCE is VERY technologically Up-To-Date. Has ALL the cool things like the
                 Enery-Bomb etc......(handy to have if you cant be bothered
killing a ton of anoying eagle fighters.)
RIEDQUAT is the place to go if you wanna fight. A few trips here, and you wont
       even KNOW your rating has been improved!

BUT-----
Once you get to COMPETENT, it is VERY SLOW sailing to the next level. I have 
personaliy destroyed at least 10 Imperial Big-Ones in my COBRA MKIII, and it
hasnt even flinched.......

Thats about All for now, so I hope I have helped SOMEONE out there in the true
appreciation of this Masterpiece of a Game (Except for those Wanking English
Twits
who are the faces of the Starports. "Hi, Sweety....AAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!")

SERGEANT-MAJOR JUSTIN H. ANDREWS of the THARGOID INTERCEPTOR
                 "....dont mess with me........" 
                (Honorary plaque mouted in cockpit)

Also, I have designed some New-Generation Ships, like the CRAB FIGHTER,
and the COBRA MK4. They are not Fancy-looking (done on Win95 "PAINT"
Program), but if anyone else has done anything similar (ie pictures,
stories....),  then e-mail `em to me. I am located at
devilman@ultra.net.au     and should be around until May/June (When my
SUPA-NET unlimited access expires.......)

LATER ALL!  >}:-<)>

Yours Sincerely,
Justin Andrews